Dr Kelly Lockwood, Lecturer in Criminology, has co-authored – with Professor Tony Long and others – a new report into how best to help build resilience among families impacted upon by the criminal justice system. The authors’ work Constructive Connections: building resilience of
families affected by the criminal justice system, researched young people’s views about their encounters with the CJS. The report highlights that the key message from young people was the need to humanise their experience – from arrest of a parent to the years after their release: “They felt themselves to be victimised by the authorities and by the community, and this led to massive disruption in their lives: the loss of their childhood”.

Read the report’s Executive Summary here

Please cite as: Long T, Lockwood K, Raikes B, Sharratt K, Loucks N, Nugent B (2019) Constructive Connections: building resilience in families affected by the criminal justice system. University of Salford, University of Huddersfield,
Families Outside. ISBN 978-1-912337-28-6

Dr Laura Connelly, Lecturer in Criminology, and expert on issues within the context of the sex industry, is current collaborating with Fez Endalaust (SWARM) and the English Collective of Prostitutes on a project exploring migrant sex work in ‘Brexit’ Britain. The project examines how the effects of the (quasi)criminalisation of sex work are compounded by changes in immigration policy and practice.

Dr Antony Ellis, Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology, has published an article in The Conversation and a blog for the London School of Economics discussing explanations for the steady year-on-year increase in the UK’s homicide rate since March 2015 which has affected young men in particular.

Tony highlights in The Conversation article that “The sharp rise in homicide among disadvantaged young men since 2015 correlates with intensifying austerity. Like men who came of age during the 1980s, today’s disadvantaged youth have grown up in the aftermath of a global recession and amid austerity that has limited their prospects. This raises another tragic reality of rising violence today. As during previous rises, largely disadvantaged and insecure young men are competing with one another for reputation and social status. In the process, they’re turning on men just as disadvantaged, economically marginalised and politically abandoned as them“.

Salford Professor Neal Hazel has been speaking to Youth Justice policy-makers and practitioners around the UK, with a focus on innovation in the sector. In January 2020, Neal delivered a keynote address to Kent Hackathon 2020, Ashford, Kent. This large practice workshop for the police and other criminal justice professionals was designed to help participants think innovatively about new ways to prevent serious violence.

In 2019 Neal presented at Constructive Resettlement and Child First to leaders across the youth custodial estate on developing a new model for thinking about working with children. He also spoke at the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance Conference, Birmingham, on The youth justice system and the arts. 

Dr Antony Ellis, Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology, has published a theoretically-ground-breaking article on the rise in lethal violence in post-2008 recession United Kingdom in the British Journal of Criminology. His article offers theoretical analysis and reflections on the recent rises in lethal violence recorded in the United Kingdom. The rises have attracted considerable media attention. More informed discussions have drawn plausible causal associations between rising lethal violence and the policy context of austerity. Criminology, however, has been relatively silent so far on the recent rises and this potential association. In response, Anthony’s article critically considers the utility of one of the most widely cited theoretical frameworks in the study of historical patterns of violence in the western nations: the ‘civilizing process’. It then moves on to consider the applicability of insights from the ultra-realist criminological perspective. The article suggests that the ultra-realist concept of the ‘pseudo-pacification process’ provides a useful means of furthering our understanding of these rises in the current socioeconomic context of post-crash capitalism.

The start of the new year 2018 has been an exciting time for Professor Neal Hazel, who was appointed to the Youth Justice Board. Find out more here.